SpaceX shows off Dragon V2, its brand new manned space capsule

Elon Musk literally pulls back the curtain on his most ambitious project yet.

HAWTHORNE, CA—At an evening event in the SpaceX Headquarters on Thursday night, CEO and founder Elon Musk revealed the Dragon V2 space capsule, a next-generation version of SpaceX's current Dragon capsule that will be able to ferry up to seven crew members and cargo to the International Space Station (ISS) and eventually to other destinations. The capsule is reusable, and will be able to make a controlled landing "with the precision of a helicopter" upon re-entry.

The capsule, which has been in development for several years with help from NASA, will be a part of a new generation of commercial space vehicles since the US shuttered its own shuttle program in 2011. Currently, NASA pays Russia around $71 million a head to taxi astronauts to and from the ISS on Soyuz vehicles.

Tonight, Musk told the press that his company foresees being able to send astronauts to the ISS and back for around $20 million per seat.

Musk added that depending on how many flights SpaceX is able to launch, that cost-per-head number could come down significantly to where it could "potentially get into the single-digit-million figure.”

NASA has publicly stated that it wants a commercial space vehicle to be ready for prime time by 2017; Musk told Ars tonight that NASA is being characteristically cautious: “from a SpaceX standpoint we expect to be ready to transport crew by 2016,” he said. “We feel fairly confident that we’ll be ready in two years.” When the Dragon V2 does launch, it’ll launch from the historic pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center, which SpaceX recently signed a 20-year lease for.

The front of the SpaceX Headquarters in Hawthorne, CA.

Megan Geuss

A flown SpaceX Dragon capsule.

Megan Geuss

Elon Musk prepares to reveal what's behind the curtain to his right (hint: it's not more curtains).

Megan Geuss

The curtain was literally dropped, revealing the Dragon V2.

Megan Geuss

The fog of mystery clears around the Dragon V2!

Megan Geuss

Welcome aboard!

Megan Geuss

Ground Control to Major Tom: two large screens showed a video feed of Elon Musk inside spaceship.

Megan Geuss

The older Draco thruster.

Megan Geuss

A side view of the body of the SuperDraco thrusters that will be used on the Dragon V2's launch abort system.

Megan Geuss

Another view of the SuperDraco thrusters.

Megan Geuss

Elon Musk takes questions from the press.

Megan Geuss

An inside view of the Dragon V2. There are actually four seats on the top and three seats on the bottom.

Megan Geuss

A magical view may someday be seen from this window.

Megan Geuss

The control panel borrows heavily from the Tesla S' control panel design. Although the image looks upside down, when you're lying down in the capsule's seats the screen is oriented correctly.

Megan Geuss

Megan Geuss

A view of the roof of the Dragon V2.

Megan Geuss

Ready for flight. The conductor comes around to hand out the space suits later, right?

Megan Geuss

Tricked out space ride

The Dragon V2 borrows heavily from the design of the original Dragon, and because of this, Musk told the press that getting from version one to version two cost about $400 to 500 million. Still, "it’ll probably be that amount more to get to first flight, so you’re looking at somewhere around a billion dollars,” Musk admitted. He noted that NASA is helping fund much of the research and development, and taken with the Falcon launch rocket, which SpaceX designed without help from NASA, Musk said that NASA has contributed about 50 percent of the funding for the project.

“Really we would not be where we are today without the help of NASA,” Musk said.

Key to making the Dragon V2 cost-effective will be getting a lot of reuse out of it. According to Musk, the V2 is built to withstand 10 flights without any significant refurbishment. After that tenth flight or so, the heat shield would likely have to be replaced. On the V2, that shield is a variant of NASA’s Phenolic Impregnated Carbon Ablator, which SpaceX calls PICA-X 3 (it retains an X because it’s SpaceX’s variant, and a three because it’s the third version of such a shield.) But Musk said he expects that the next versions of PICA-X will last longer than the most current version. “It’s kind of like a brake pad, it does need to be replaced, but eventually we’d like to get up to 100 flights” out of the heat shield before replacement becomes necessary, he said, adding that SpaceX has improved the micrometeorite shielding on the Dragon V2, as well.

The Dragon V2 will be able to hold seven passengers as well as a ton of pressurized cargo, along with two to three tons of unpressurized cargo.

All that mass will be propelled by the SuperDraco engines that SpaceX has been working on for some time. The company announced this week that the SuperDraco engines, which are 200 times more powerful than the current Draco engines on the Dragon spacecraft, have passed qualification testing and will be used on the Dragon V2 to run the Launch Abort System and to facilitate precision landing.

In building the V2, Musk said that the “biggest technology challenge was the SuperDraco engine..because that’s an engine that has to produce a tremendous amount of thrust and also be very light; it also has to throttle over a very wide range.”

Inside of the Dragon V2, two sets of two 17-inch touch screens make up the main control space. Musk was not hesitant to say that those screens were taken from the design of the Tesla Model S.

Enlarge/ Elon Musk in front of the Dragon V2 with the touch screen control panel in the background.

Megan Geuss

“The touch screens are sort of a ruggedized version of what was used in the Tesla Model S so there’s a bit of technology sharing there…and the great thing about a 17-inch touch screen…[is that] you can configure the interface to have a wide range of controls and a wide range of feedback, and you can really have almost an infinite amount of information,” Musk said. "In the unlikely event of all the screens being destroyed, the critical functions can all be controlled with manual buttons in terms of manual chute deploy and reserve oxygen going to the backup systems for life support.”

Musk told Ars that, like the Tesla S’ touch screen, Nvidia SoCs will power the graphics on the Dragon V2 (although those chips won’t power the rest of the systems on the spaceship, Musk clarified, laughing).

A grand vision

It’s hard to come away from an event like this without feeling a little starry-eyed. Although SpaceX is just one commercial space company building a capsule among others (Boeing and the Sierra Nevada Corporation are two big players that are also building crewed spacecraft for the near future), the company’s founder is openly ambitious about humanity becoming an interplanetary species, and even comes off a little anxious for that future to arrive.

“We want to get to the point where we have thousands of space flights per year, and ultimately where we have a base on the moon and we have [bases] for other civilizations, that’s where things need to go in the long term,” Musk told the audience early on in his address. “Eventually we will be able to go beyond our solar system.”

Even if this sounds dreamy now, the founder confidently estimated that it would be a mere 20 years before “thousands” of flights would occur every year.

And after years of watching NASA flounder due to funding problems, SpaceX is in many ways becoming the heir to the hope that Americans felt about NASA during the Space Race. At tonight's event, Musk was happy to spread the love around: “America is the only place where a private company could get this far," he said, "and we’ve been able to attract a very talented team… having critical amounts of talent is what has enabled us to get this far.” That distance is both literal and figurative, we assume.

If anything, SpaceX knows how to make a capsule-style spaceship look 21st century. Touch screen AND legs. Hah. I eagerly wait for a live-stream of one of this (or its future iteration) landing on Moon within a decade. And a decade after, Mars.

This, and the rocket itself flying back to Earth, too. Looking at the splendid recovery effort on salvaging the landing video of the first such attempt over the rough sea over at http://spacexlanding.wikispaces.com/ it's a great time for reading space news.

Minor correction: The caption for image 12 in the slideshow says "three seats on the top and four seats on the bottom." I think that's backwards; it's four on top and three on bottom (not all visible in the image).

Minor correction: The caption for image 12 in the slideshow says "three seats on the top and four seats on the bottom." I think that's backwards; it's four on top and three on bottom (not all visible in the image).

You can't see them all so well in this photo gallery, but the manual buttons are all flavors of awesome. Each one is labeled with something dramatic: "FIRE" (suppression, I assume), "DP/DT" (I assume this fires the rockets), "CHUTE RELEASE," etc.

Essentially they moved all the boring stuff to the touch screens, and the center panel is distilled spaceship drama.

While you were in there, how did you feel about the positioning of the touchscreens? It looks like they're a bit far from the row of seats. Does that panel move down after people get settled in?

Yes I believe the panel moves down. If you check out photo 7 in the gallery, the panel seems a lot more reasonably placed (although Elon Musk is probably a little taller than me, I'd guess it's not by too much.)

SpaceX folks were actually quite strict about not touching the capsule unnecessarily (I got yelled at for putting my hand on the outside of the spacecraft), so unfortunately I can't say 100% for certain how that adjustment happens but yeah, I think it's the panel that moves.

While you were in there, how did you feel about the positioning of the touchscreens? It looks like they're a bit far from the row of seats. Does that panel move down after people get settled in?

Yes I believe the panel moves down. If you check out photo 7 in the gallery, the panel seems a lot more reasonably placed (although Elon Musk is probably a little taller than me, I'd guess it's not by too much.)

SpaceX folks were actually quite strict about not touching the capsule unnecessarily (I got yelled at for putting my hand on the outside of the spacecraft), so unfortunately I can't say 100% for certain how that adjustment happens but yeah, I think it's the panel that moves.

Thanks for pointing out photo 7. Comparing it photo 14, I can now see the different angles between the panel and part of the metallic framework supporting it. It looks like it could be more than a 60-degree movement, which explains how Musk comfortably reaches the joystick with his elbow still at his side.

Ok, now that I got that out of the way, wow, everything looks so sleek and modern. I guess I'm just not used to space hardware being that aesthetically pleasing. Did I mention how excited I am?! Here's hoping for steady progress and no surprises. I want to see this thing off the ground!

I applaud the SpaceX team for the progress they are making. When I was helping build the ISS modules a decade ago (for Boeing) I could not imagine a startup company could do so much, so fast, for so little.

Even so, developing new systems for space takes time, so I'm working on what will be needed in 10-20 years - self-expanding automated factories (http://www.seed-factory.org/ and http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Seed_Factories). If you are going to have bases on the Moon and Mars, and mine the asteroids, you need major equipment, fuel and other supplies, habitat modules, etc. The farther from Earth you go, the more it costs to ship everything you need. So you would like to make most of what you need locally.

But even with cheaper rockets, you can't afford to launch whole industrial factories to space. So instead, what you do is send a starter kit of basic machines, and use those to bootstrap up to full capacity. A factory that builds itself is also useful down here on Earth, so we are starting with that. Once we have enough experience and a revenue stream, later versions would be developed for space.

The Seed Factory Project is just getting started, so we looking for people with the right skills to develop this technology, and an R&D location. Look to hear more about it as we make progress.

I'm still wondering how good of an idea it is to have the capsule carrying a ton or so of hypergolic propellants that not only ignite happily as soon as they see each other but also are highly toxic and corrosive. Eight landing engines and a dozen of RCS engines, high-pressure helium tanks and distributed propellant tanks mean LOTS of plumbing and valves too. And if you have a leak even the emergency parachute isn't going to do much good: during the Apollo 15 splashdown dumping the remaining RCS fuel in very little wind had the fuel eating holes into the parachutes causing one to collapse and the Apollo capsule carried only a tiny fraction of what Dragon will carry. And back then they dumped the fuel for very good reasons, this is very nasty stuff to have around.

It's a nice design, especially if you can make the heatshield and engines also work for Mars landings (and it looks very much as if this thing has the heatshield and delta-V to do exactly this, which probably is the driver for that design to begin with). But still, landing with a ton of nitrogen tetroxide and monomethyl hydrazine under my ass wouldn't be anything I would look forward to. Especially since SpaceX even had lots of trouble with keeping things tight: The first Falcon 1 launch failed due to a leak in a kerosine line, two Dragon flights had trouble with stuck valves and there was quite a bit of trouble with helium leaks lately with the Falcon 9. A hypergolics leak during any phase of the flight could easily be a very bad thing.

I'm still wondering how good of an idea it is to have the capsule carrying a ton or so of hypergolic propellants that not only ignite happily as soon as they see each other but also are highly toxic and corrosive.

It's not just a matter of being hypergolic, in the industry we refer to them as "storable" propellants, which the liquid Oxygen in the lower stages is not. Storable means you can store them at ~room temperature for long periods of time, which a capsule like Dragon 2 needs to do. Cryogenic propellants have their own hazards, and *any* rocket propellant contains about the same energy per weight as explosives.

I would note that the Space Shuttle used the same MMH/NTO hypergolic combination as the Super Draco/Dragon 2 is using, and most of the hazard was from residual propellant around the thrusters after landing, and ground crew exposure. So the first crew on the scene used HazMat suits and sniffers to make sure there were no leaks or high concentrations from evaporation. With a vertical landing, it's likely there will be significant concentrations in the air and concrete at touchdown, and they will need some time to dissipate, or active ventilation.

Oh right... "I'm so excited. And I just can't hide it. I'm about to loose control and I think I like it. I'm so excited!"

This is way cool. As somebody who has worked with cockpits before, it's pretty strange to see something so elegantly designed as if it came out of a Hollywood sci-fi movie like I, Robot or The Minority Report. I wonder if SpaceX had to follow the same human factors design standards as the military does in Mil-Std-1472.

Reading the comments on this article illustrate why I love arstehnica, The readers are rocket scientists and aeronautical engineers. Any other forum would be full of flame wars sourced by Wikipedia articles.

I wonder if you can fit in those seats wearing a real astronaut suit which most likely would double Megan's waist size. How about some backup hard controls for flimsy LCD touchscreens (capacitive? no gloves please!)?

Looks like a long way to go, though clearly on the right track. Too bad we never get to meet the real heroes behind these marvels of technology.

I would note that the Space Shuttle used the same MMH/NTO hypergolic combination as the Super Draco/Dragon 2 is using, and most of the hazard was from residual propellant around the thrusters after landing, and ground crew exposure. So the first crew on the scene used HazMat suits and sniffers to make sure there were no leaks or high concentrations from evaporation. With a vertical landing, it's likely there will be significant concentrations in the air and concrete at touchdown, and they will need some time to dissipate, or active ventilation.

They would be wise to just pick up the thing with a forklift and drive it somewhere safe, preferably allowing the crew to egress through some airtight tunnel slapped onto the top after washing it down.

This stuff is nasty. During the ASTP (Apollo) landing in 1975 the crew didn't inhibit the RCS and wind sway lead to it activating, causing fumes to enter the capsule (they already had a pressure equalizing valve open). One crew member immediately went into respiratory arrest and lost consciousness until one of the others supplied emergency oxygen. All three crew members were hospitalized for two weeks with chemical-induced pneumonia.

As I said, it's a sensible design if you want to integrate LAS and powered landing systems and want to prepare for the same craft being able to touch down on Mars with crew or cargo. But if it were for safe landing alone going this way would be raving madness.

I agree though that there is not much choice when it comes to propellants here. You need something storable, with a high ISP, quick and reliable ignition... Kerosene/HTP might be an alternative, but probably with a lower ISP and with some risk of becoming unstable. And HTP itself isn't exactly lemonade either.

I'm still wondering how good of an idea it is to have the capsule carrying a ton or so of hypergolic propellants that not only ignite happily as soon as they see each other but also are highly toxic and corrosive.

It's not just a matter of being hypergolic, in the industry we refer to them as "storable" propellants, which the liquid Oxygen in the lower stages is not. Storable means you can store them at ~room temperature for long periods of time, which a capsule like Dragon 2 needs to do. Cryogenic propellants have their own hazards, and *any* rocket propellant contains about the same energy per weight as explosives.

I would note that the Space Shuttle used the same MMH/NTO hypergolic combination as the Super Draco/Dragon 2 is using, and most of the hazard was from residual propellant around the thrusters after landing, and ground crew exposure. So the first crew on the scene used HazMat suits and sniffers to make sure there were no leaks or high concentrations from evaporation. With a vertical landing, it's likely there will be significant concentrations in the air and concrete at touchdown, and they will need some time to dissipate, or active ventilation.

Pretty sure the main reason they chose hypergolic is the thrust range/response, which lets them use the same motors for launch evac and landing; whilst retaining spare thrust to provide redundancy in the event of failures.

Anyone else find it interesting how unpolished Elon Musk is with his presentations? He's full of ummms, awkward pauses, and badly timed flourishes (watching him stumble in and out of the cockpit was almost painful). Maybe I've gotten spoiled on Apple and Google keynotes, but when I watched him, it seemed the very antithesis of those polished presentations.

On the one hand, it's annoying to me, but on the other hand, it kind of makes me appreciate Musk being a nervous geek who is simply more excited about his awesome new creation rather than caring too much about impressing the audience.